Attention Atheists.
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yrs--
--Ben
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You know what I have to say to that?
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"One of Einstein's most eagerly quoted remarks is 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.' But Einstein also said,
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
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Also, tangent.
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*Head Explodes*
Panaceas come in all forms, sadly, they're all placebos, too.
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So, yeah. Did you get gang-banged by Richard Dawkins or something? :)
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The perpetrators of the Cultural Revolution were (by and large) raised atheist, and acted under a banner of "destroying the old society, raising up the new society."
To answer the question, I'm just grouchy. And displeased with moral superiority arguments.
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The reason the revolution attempts to destroy religion is because it wants its people to worship the state. No authority is higher than the state. If you have any religion at all in that environment, you have dissent. China doesn't want dissent, it wants pure and blind obedience.
China is not a good example to use in this context. It hasn't performed any action "in the name of atheism;" it performed actions in the name of a small number of men who wanted power at all costs. That isn't atheism, that's tyranny.
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That's a lie.
Except if you're willing to, by the same brush, say that the Crusades, the Inquisition, and 9/11 had nothing to do with theism, because they don't have to do with theism that you like during the modern day within your culture.
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I'm not saying that the motivation of the GOVERNMENT (and those directly in power) was a pure, "KILL THE THEISTS!" That was just their propaganda to tighten their oligarchical control over the nation (Mao didn't run everything). HOWEVER, the lower levels of the Communist Party bought it, and on a local level just about everywhere went atheist and killed people who would not.
Just because the Wizard behind the curtain doesn't believe in his powers doesn't mean that the people of the Emerald City don't believe in his powers.
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yrs--
--Ben
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Matt
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Most belief systems which have been at all coherent for any length of time are responsible for the death of innocents, I think. (Neopaganism hasn't been, but that's because a) we invented it in the last fifty years, contrary to what people on the Internet who think they're dragons will tell you, and b) we're nowhere near cohesive enough. Certainly historical pagan cultures were just as kill-crazed as anyone else.)
(Also: proselytizing atheists are JUST AS FUCKING BAD as proselytizing anything-the-hell-else in modern culture. I believe in Stuff. If you want to believe that I'm stupid/wicked/going to hell because you disbelieve Stuff, or believe Other Stuff, well, fuck you, but you get to think that. Try to convince me, though, and I'll unload on you with both barrels.)
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To all the Mr. Dawkins of the world...
"Fundamentalist Atheism" exists. It's beleiving that religion itself is, how you say, heretical, anathema, when you look at the world.
Rather than mainstream athiesm, which is just the reasonable belief that the evidence points to no religion being correct, and forswearing religion.
I'm raised Jewish, and mostly Buddist. Jews and Buddhists don't scare me.
Chasids and Pure Land Buddhists, on the otherhand...
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